School of Athens

1508 - 1511

Why is it canonical?

Raphael of Urbino represents the height of High Renaissance painting, and admirers for years after knew him for his effortless technical ability, seemingly devoid of the struggle and conflict that beset the life of Michelangelo. Raphael received the commission to cover the walls of the Stanza della Segnatura with frescos in 1508, among them this incredibly famous Renaissance painting, which depicts the great thinkers of Classical antiquity and thereby communicating the message that the Church and its rulers inherited a tradition not only from the Bible, but from the classical heritage, thereby qualifying them as rulers of both the church and of civil society.